No one likes a hypocrite.
Politicians who attend beauty parlors they’ve closed to others. Governors who attend large gatherings they’ve prohibited for others. Celebrities who travel to receive an environmental award by jetting to the award ceremony.
If there is anything we like less than a hypocrite, though, it is to be considered a hypocrite. We like to imagine ourselves consistent, sincere, and faithful to the truth.
But the reality is, as taught by Scripture, that in our sinful condition we are hypocritical: our behavior is inconsistent with the truth. We act hypocritically when our behavior doesn’t match the truth. This might be because our knowledge of truth is deficient, or because we know the truth, but prefer to act according to something else.
Hypocrisy generally takes a few basic forms:
- one rule for yourself, and another rule for others
- acting differently with different people (being “two-faced”)
- saying, but not doing
The word comes from the Greek theater, in which one actor would wear different masks to represent different characters in the play.
In Galatians 2:11-14, Paul rebukes Peter, other church leaders, and “even Barnabas” for hypocrisy regarding the gospel and its application. Hypocrisy was dangerous in this instance because Peter’s actions seemed to betray his prior learning and conviction that Gentiles converts were not “unclean” and need not live by obsolete ceremonial law, specifically, circumcision.
This hypocrisy had dangerous effects:
- Living out of Fellowship. Hypocrisy leads to the breach of genuine fellowship among believers. Wearing different theological or practical “masks” around different people necessitates making distinctions the gospel doesn’t make, and classifying people in ways that the gospel doesn’t classify.
- Acting out of Fear. Paul adapted his approach for different people out of love for the people he adapted to. But Peter changed his approach out of fear of people whose respect he cherished. Hypocrisy fosters cowardice and self-preservation, rather than gospel love.
- Breaking out of Quarantine. Like leaven and viruses, hypocrisy usually doesn’t remain contained, but spreads to others, infecting even the prominent leader, the mature Christian, and the faithful coworker. Like a tumor at risk of spreading, or gangrene that threatens a life, it must be excised completely, and quickly.
- Walking out of Step. The gospel is good news because it restores to us consistent living in light of the truth. Adam & Eve compromised the truth, and their behavior reflected it. To live in ways that directly contradict the truth, or deny it by implication, is hypocrisy.
Are you living as a hypocrite? Are you wearing a mask of salvation in Christ? Are you pretending to have joy, hope, forgiveness, and peace through faith in Christ, when in reality you don’t know those things — or Him — at all?
Don’t continue in hypocrisy for one second longer: there is forgiveness in Christ right now for hypocrites who repent and trust in him alone.